Energy costs

This morning while I drove to an event I listened to the Colin Taylor podcast. He brought up a few things which I think I should expand upon. Also to try and remove a few misconceptions.

First thing to know as a groomer is heating stuff takes up alot more energy than moving stuff.

For example it takes the same energy to run a typical fan heater 1.5kw for an hour as it does to turn the falkirk wheel half a rotation.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Energy is measured in joules but they are too unwieldy for everyday use. To make things easier lets talk Kilowatt hours. That is the amount of energy needed to run a 1 kilowatt load for an hour. A kilowatt is 1000 watts. Looking on Argos a typical hairdryer is 2Kilowatt so to run this for an hour it would be 2 kilowatt hours. A typical kettle is 3 Kilowatt so to run it for an hour it would be 3 kilowatt hour.

From here on I’m going to shorten Kilowatt to Kw, Kilowatt hour to KwH and Watts to W

So how much is a KwH going to cost you?

Looking online a typical kilowatt is about 40pence for electricty. So your hair dryer for an hour is about 80pence

Now how do you tell how much power something is using.

In theory you can look at the label but some of those are bollocks as the first blaster I looked at claimed to be 1Kw but it also boasted a 2hp motor. 1 hp is equal to 1.36kw (i did that from memory sad isn’t it) so a 2hp motor should be about 2.6kw. So I think we can ignore the label in this case.

As I am a mobile sharpener running off batterys with 1.5KwH of storage I have a keen intrest in how much power something takes.

As I said on the mobile workshop page I bought a cheap and cheerful plug in power meter.

I find it to be quite reliable and when Big Clive with his tremendous beard looked at one he found it to be quite good.

So to get a really good idea on how much energy something is using then I would happily recommend you buy one of these. It is better than a smart meter as it will let you see what one machine is using.

One thing that Colin touched upon in his podcast was the cost of running a toaster vs a clipper and this is the one thing I had to clarify.

As I said above heating stuff takes way more energy than moving stuff.

I have a set of Andi AGR corded clippers and I plugged them in and really pushing them with some test fur I had a reading of 12w which is 0.012Kw

A cheapo toaster has a rating of 1000w or 1Kw

This means a toaster is 83 times more expensive to run than a corded clipper.

I haven’t had a deep dive into cordless clippers but if you get one of these power meter this is something you can do.

With that put to rest lets have a brief looky at other consumers of energy in the salon.

As I said heating stuff takes more energy than moving stuff.

In a salon you do alot of heating stuff

Firstly you do alot of heating of water

An electric shower for a big one can be 10Kw so to run it for an hour that is 10KwH which is £4

And if you are running your hot water down the drain then it is money running down the drain as that is where your hot water goes.

Current gas prices are 15p per KwH so if you can run off a mains gas boiler then you are making a decent saving as the same amount of hot water would cost £1.50

I haven’t looked at hydro baths but I think they recycle the water which means they will also recycle the heat. I would need to talk to them to find out how they work. Ask me to take a deeper dig and I will. Unless someone has a hydro bath near me in which case I will happily lend them the power meter for a week to see how much power it consumes.

Dryers and blasters dump their heat into the air so the money on these isn’t going down the drain it is going into the air so you will save a bit on heating.

I have seen some disposable towels I haven’t looked into costs but this might save you a wee bit on drying costs.

And if you are reading this Colin, see you in July up here in the wild north I hope